sadie in the V

Mr. Bush's Weather Report

News from and about the Bush administration continues to astonish. In adherence to a law passed in 1990, presidents must submit a report to Congress every four years summarizing the status and latest findings re: global climate change and environmental problems. It comes as no big surprise that some of the latest findings tell us that an increase in temperature levels brings with it a host of problems for the elderly, the very young, the frail, and in particular the poor of these three groups. And it also comes as no surprise that the report itself was delayed--entangled in what Senator John Kerry called a realm that was "rhetorical, not real."

Hitler once said that if you are going to lie, tell the biggest lie. Because that is the one that people will believe. We've seen this with the Bush administration over and over again. Now, even one of Bush's own press secretaries, Scott McClellan, has emerged from the axis of deception to point the finger at the murky bed of lies--Iraq, Katrina. How much more can we take before these people leave the White House?

Obama is like a virgin spring running clear and free in the desert. From the realm of chaos and destruction, he emerges a man with a message. And the message is truth. The message is hope. And the message is now.

aging brains

i read two articles today about memory--one in the New York Times and one in Wired. one discussed a software program called Super Memo, created by Piotr Wozniak, that actually figures out how long the interval is between you first learning something and subsequently forgetting it. the idea is to 'remind' you of the new information just at the moment before you forget it. theoretically your interval of remembering the information gets longer and longer. so that let's say initially the interval is 5 minutes, the next one is 15, etc.

the other article was about the aging brain. aside from people who develop alzheimer's, which according to the Times article is an alarming 13% of americans 65 or older, peoples' brains behave in different ways as we age. they take in more information and 'stop to process' when presented with words that are out of place in a paragraph, for instance. whereas a young college student will no doubt keep reading as if the "distraction" didn't even exist. so what this says is that the older brain is processing more information. it may not focus exclusively on what seems to be the issue at hand, but by taking in more information may end up having a broader knowledge of the subject which could come in handy. as an example an older person may notice certain details in a speaker's presentation that convey as much or more information than their actual words. the details could emphasize certain beliefs or even belie what they are saying.

and there was this in the Times article: "A reduced ability to filter and set priorities, the scientists concluded, could contribute to original thinking."

So maybe that explains my 'creativity.' [smile]

and also that perhaps the taking in of more information from a situation (which is what the older brain does) combined with the array of stored knowledge results in what we call "wisdom." nice.